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Content which gets commented on, tagged, retweeted, repurposed and, in the case of copy, perhaps even printed on paper.

Yet many people expect this content to appear, sweat-free, without embracing any of the rigour, processes and pain associated with traditional publishing.

Many of the digital marketers I meet, miserably inform me that they are expected to magic this content out of a combination of product managers, marketing assistants, internal stakeholders and web managers, all of whom had a full-time job before responsibility for supplying high-quality content got dumped in their laps.

How short-sighted of us not to look to traditional publishing and learn from its structure and systems.

How misguided of us to assume our organisations will be transformed into publishing houses, simply by purchasing a clever CMS.

How risky to assume that becoming a content publisher won’t also require internal restructuring, training and a sophisticated editorial strategy to follow.

My very first job was in a big B2B publishing house and I remember well the strict hierarchy and constant and lively negotiation between those in charge of achieving commercial objectives and those responsible for editorial standards.

You could say perhaps that one stood for sales and the other for user experience. The publisher’s job was to arbitrate between the two.

In my opinion, many companies claiming that content production is central to their marketing plans don’t have in place anything like the editorial control I saw (and felt) every day in that job and in every publishing job I’ve had since, from trade press to tabloid, broadsheet to brochures.

Most of all I rarely meet anyone performing the role of an actual publisher, with all the skill and seniority that implies.

If you are really going to get into content production on a serious scale and you expect it to show a return on investment for your company, then I’d argue it’s worth the sweat to put proper publishing processes and editorial hierarchy in place.

How do I start acting like a publisher?

To kick off, I’d try answering these three questions:

What’s the plan?

Ideally you’d have an integrated content/editorial/publishing strategy that everyone is aware of and buys into. You should know the exact purpose of each landing page, blog post, video, tweet and email and have measurements in place to check what worked.

Who’s in charge?

Once, when working as a reporter on a local paper, the news editor took an article I’d printed out to show him, scrunched it up and literally threw it back in my face. That was his way of saying “do it again, it’s not good enough”.

What process and controls do you have in place for commissioning, publishing and checking the quality of your content, and are they effective?

What does good content look like for us?

The most frustrating thing for a content creator is an unclear brief. If you want to improve the quality of your content, then you must be able to demonstrate what good quality content looks like for your organisation.

It’s not helpful to show Red Bull TV to a roomful of insurance product managers as an example of great content.

Follow the Blue Peter principle of ‘here’s one I made earlier’ and circulate user-centred, usable examples of exactly what you want your content contributors to aim at. Support this with guidelines and training.

We’ve been blogging at Econsultancy for the past six years and it has been great for our company. I have long held the view that all businesses should have a blog.

Our blog now accounts for two thirds of site traffic and has claimed lots of valuable search placements on Google, which we’d otherwise have to buy. It also provides our social media manager with a bunch of fresh content to feed into the likes of Twitter and Facebook.

Furthermore, it has helped to grow awareness and perceptions of our brand, while establishing a warmer tone of voice than might otherwise be expected of a ‘consultancy’ (we’re actually a learning-based business, as opposed to an outright consultancy!).

When new writers start at Econsultancy I give them a handy cut out and keep list of blog post templates, which they can use for inspiration. Everybody gets writer’s block from time to time, and my checklist helps to provide a framework for the blog.

I have adapted these 34 ideas to make them less Econsultancy-centric, so that you can use them. I hope they prove helpful, whether you’re a writer, editor or content strategist.

One of the things that makes FODM unique is the focus on the practical future. Newly formed ideas and technology that you can actually put to use straight away.

This year was no different, and while there was a certain amount of theoretical future gazing (takes a bow, haptic contact lenses!)the buzz on Twitter focussed on the practical, with a number of interesting stats and concepts grabbing the lion’s share of ReTweets

I make a point of monitoring the tweet action at all our events as it provides great insight into the discussion points that really matter to attendees.

This year, mobile technology, integration and personalisation were all recurring themes. Let’s take a look at these in a bit more detail:

According to a newly-published study published by Pew, nearly three-quarters of Facebook users polled said they didn’t know that Facebook generates and stores data about their interests and traits, and, when they came to learn this, over half indicated that they were uncomfortable with Facebook’s practice.

Mastercard, the third-largest credit card processor in the US, has announced a new policy that will make it more difficult for some businesses to automatically convert free trials into recurring subscriptions.